• Alex Jones on Piers Morgan

    So the video of Alex Jones on Piers Morgan has been popping up on the internet today. Alex Jones is one of those people that I ignore in hopes that he will go away. Here is part one.


    I don’t even know why Piers had him on his show. It’s obvious that Alex Jones is incapable of having an intelligent conversation. The pro-gun people seem to think the gun control people want to take away all guns, but that’s far from the truth. The gun control people don’t want to take away all guns, they just want to try and limit the number of gun deaths.

    I am pretty split on the gun control issue. I don’t think we should take away people’s guns because of rare anomalies like school shootings. They may see common, but in reality they are still pretty rare. I’m not really sure if added gun control would even make a difference, but maybe some things could be done better. I’ve never bought a gun, so I really don’t know how hard it is, or what regulations there are.

    In a perfect world, both sides would sit down and make legislation that makes sense and doesn’t punish gun owners and yet prevents some of the deaths. But of course this isn’t a perfect world.

    Here is part 2 if you can handle more of Alex Jones, I couldn’t take any more of him myself.

  • Penn Jillette on The Wendy Williams Show

    Today it’s another Penn Jillette video. It’s from The Wendy Williams Show. I have no idea who Wendy Williams is, and I’ve never seen her show. I just found it funny how all the women were talking over the the only voice of reason. I totally agree with Penn here, and found it a little sad that the women weren’t even listening to him.

  • Glenn Beck talks to Penn Jillette

    I can’t believe I just watched Glenn Beck for 42 minutes. He is on my “ignore and hope he goes away” list. While I agree with little he had to say, he was pretty reasonable in this video. It was probably because his guest was Penn Jillette. While I don’t always agree with Penn Jillette, for the most part we have similar beliefs. It was just nice to see people with different beliefs actually agreeing on things. We need more of this. No matter how different people’s beliefs are, chances are we agree on more things than we disagree on.

  • My not so original thoughts…

    This latest school shooting has really hit me hard. I don’t know if it is because of their age, or the time of the year it’s happening. It’s probably a combination of both. This is my third attempt to blog about it, and really, I don’t have much to say that hasn’t been said before, so I’m going to keep it short.

    To the people that say now isn’t the time to talk about gun control, you are right. That time has passed long ago. How many more people are going to die before we do something? Everyday that goes by more people are dieing from gun deaths that could’ve been prevented. I’m not talking about a total ban, but some guns just shouldn’t be available to the public. There is just no reason for people to own automatic and semi-automatic guns. Would it really be the end of the world for gun owners to have to have some sort of training, and education on proper storage of their guns? I like my friend Mikey’s suggestion on treating owning guns like driving a car. Both are dangerous, so both should require proper training and education.

    We need to invest more into mental health care. This is a harder topic in my opinion. People often don’t know that they need help, and people around people don’t realize they need help until often times it’s to late. It always seems obvious after the fact, but never is really that obvious.

    It makes me sick to my stomach when people use tragedies like this to push their agendas. Forcing kids to pry to your god would in no way prevented this. Also, preying is not banded in school. Anybody can prey any time they want in school. Forcing everybody to prey to a certain god is not allowed. Religion is a private thing, because believe it or not, people have different believes.

    I wish events like this would bring us together to sit down and rationally think it over to try and find solutions. Sadly it seems to divide our nation even more. I highly doubt anything will be done, and I can almost guarantee you there will be another school shooting this spring.

    There, I got that off my chest.

  • Dead people can vote in North Dakota

    So apparently if you vote absentee, and then die before the election, most states throw out your vote. Twenty-seven ballots have been thrown out in Minnesota this year already. I’m not sure how I feel about this. Sure if a person died before the election they wouldn’t have been able to vote, but they weren’t dead when they voted. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth to know that people go through and throw out people’s votes. So if a soldier, fighting for our country, gets shot dead Monday, his vote no longer matters? That just doesn’t seem right to me. If a person voted legally, it should count in my book, and in North Dakota it does.

  • Consider effects of ‘yes’ vote

    This past Saturday there was a great letter in the opinion section of our local paper—the Fargo Forum—in regards to the upcoming marriage amendment vote in Minnesota. It totally deserves a link, and since the link will probably go bad in a week, here is the text.

    By: Bernie Erickson, INFORUM

    In a few weeks, Minnesotans will cast a “yes” or “no” vote that will dramatically affect marriage for thousands of people. Here are a few things your “yes” vote will and will not do:

    • Your “yes” vote will not have any effect on your current marriage or any of your future marriages.
    • Your “yes” vote will not protect your church’s right to refuse to host a religious ceremony for any couple for any number of reasons.
    • Your “yes” vote will not create better living conditions for any children in Minnesota.
    • Your “yes” vote will do nothing to curb the divorce rate or reduce domestic violence.
    • Your “yes” vote will not affect your existing employer benefits.
    • Your “yes” vote will not cause same-gender couples in committed relationships to separate.

    Generally speaking, if you’re a straight person or part of an opposite-gender couple, your “yes” vote will have pretty much no effect on your life.

    However, your “yes” vote will affect a number of lives in a big way. For example:

    • Your “yes” vote will ensure that the woman dying of breast cancer will have no access to the health benefits provided to her partner, the U.S. Postal Service letter carrier.
    • Your “yes” vote will ensure that the man with 20 years of military service who died in Afghanistan last week will leave no survivorship benefits for his life partner back here in the U.S. In spite of the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” the Defense of Marriage Act prohibits any military benefits be given to the partners of military personnel.
    • Your “yes” vote will ensure that the man waiting in the emergency room, whose partner of 40 years is dying of injuries sustained in an auto accident, not only has to worry about losing his life partner but also has to worry if medical personnel will allow him to make health care or end-of-life decisions.
    • Your “yes” vote will ensure that children of same-gender couples will know their family is somehow less than yours.

    There’s a virtually unending list of things that could be done to strengthen marriage and families. Denying the right to marry to thousands of Minnesotans is just not one of them.

    ———————–

    Erickson lives in south Fargo with his partner David Hamilton. They were married in Canada in 2006.

  • What are the limits to free speech?

    So there is some anti-choice* group in town trying to spread their message. I’m all for people’s freedom of speech and their ability to spread whatever message they want. Speech that you don’t agree with is probably the hardest to defend, but it should be defended notheless. As long as your not hurting anyone, or interfering with anybody else’s rights.

    This group was holding large, 4’x6′, pictures of dead babies. I tried not to look, but it was impossible not to. They situated themselves right where you had to look to make a turn at the intersection. The pictures were obviously not aborted babies. They were more like mutilated six-month-olds. Pretty disturbing stuff. There were reports of school children having problems in school after seeing the images. I think that is going to far. There are limits to free speech, and I think disturbing kids crosses that line. Does this kind of behavior really change people’s opinion on topics? I think being offensive just for the sake of being offensive makes you look ignorant and stupid, but maybe that’s just me.

    I will never understand people that are hellbent on taking away the rights of others. If you don’t like gay marriage, don’t get one. If you don’t like abortion, don’t get one. If you don’t like broccoli, don’t eat it. Let people live their own lives, and don’t worry about their business. Isn’t this suppose to be the land of the free?

     

    *I call them anti-choise because many pro-choice people like myself are against abortion too.

  • Don’t let Photoshop fool you

    So this image has been popping up on Facebook.

    My conservative family is always looking for things to attack Obama on. They are all outraged over this — obviously photoshopped — picture of Obama using is left hand. As if using your left hand means anything different — but anyway. I noticed right away that Obama’s ring looks wrong, and then I noticed the Marine in the background. It’s so obvious that the image was reversed. I didn’t need Snopes to sniff this one out, but they did have the original image.

    I don’t care where you stand politically, as long as your beliefs are based on facts. Conservatives seem to be controlled by fear, and a simple Photoshop job gets them all worked up.